“Here,” Quinn stepped into the kitchen and reached for the bottles. “Hana, Craig, and I can take these outside for you.” She hoisted three of them into Craig’s arms, took the other four for her and Hana, and backed out of the kitchen. “We’ll see you outside.”
Jason pointed in the opposite direction from where we’d entered. “Just go down the hall then take a left through the library to the backyard.”
Hana mouthed to Quinn, “the library?” as they skittered away without me. Clearly, my friends had purposely abandoned me.
I smiled awkwardly at Jason.
He smiled handsomely back at me.
Think, Ellie, think. “Your line last night, ‘It smells like Fig Newtons and desperation,’ was brilliant, by the way.”
“Ha. Thanks, I don’t know where that came from.” He shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his chest. “I couldn’t stop laughing at your Little Miss Princess scene with Quinn.”
He remembers my character.
He thinks I’m funny.
“I have to ask. How did you keep your upper lip folded against your teeth the whole time?” He tried to mimic what I had done and looked so silly—flaring his nostrils trying to get his upper lip to stay folded under—that I laughed.
“The key is to get your teeth dry first. It works best when you’re severely dehydrated.” I tucked my upper lip under to show him.
He laughed. “That talent is going to get you far. Though, I hope you’re not severely dehydrated now. Do you want any of that sparkling stuff?”
I unfolded my lip. “Plain ol’ water would be great, thanks.”
He got a glass and turned to fill it in the refrigerator door. “Your brother is a talented guitar player.”
Stepbrother, I managed to not correct aloud. “So he tells me.” Not much better. “Do you play?”
“He used to,” a voice said from behind me.
“Ellie, this is my sister Olivia. She goes to Northwestern so she could stay at home,” Jason said with a warmth I wouldn’t have suspected from a younger brother. “Olivia, this is Ellie. She’s from Northglenn’s improv group.”
“Hello, Ellie. You must be good. Jason never invites the other improv groups over.” Olivia was rocking the sexy librarian look—black glasses, crisp clothes, tight bun and all. She shook my hand, hers petite and bony in mine. “Jason’s guitar playing was decent, but his singing, wow. ‘The voice of an angel,’ Mom would say. But he hasn’t done any of that in forever.” She gave him a faraway look.
Jason winced. “I wasn’t that good.”
“He was.” Olivia smiled, which made her eyes look just like Jason’s. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m off. Dad is in his office. I told him not to leave it until everyone is gone, so be good and don’t destroy the house, m’kay? Nice to meet you, Ellie.”
She clicked away in her shiny shoes. I hope there is some magical thing that happens automatically between high school and college that will make me look that confident and together by next year.
Jason led the way outside, and as we stepped out onto the brick patio, I let out a little gasp at the gorgeous gardens over the expanse of their yard.
“Did I mention Olivia is studying botany? She wants to eventually get a doctorate in pharmacognosy.”
“What’s that?”
“Basically, how plants can be turned into medicine. She’s obsessed with the idea of curing a rare disease, but I think she’s an artist at heart.” Jason gestured out to the gardens.
“She’s definitely that.” The yard was filled with winding stone paths, bonsai trees, intricate bushes, and flowers everywhere. “It’s amazing. Looks straight out of the Japanese gardens at the Chicago Botanic Garden.”
There were shrieks of laughter. Quinn, Hana, Craig, and the curly-haired guy from the Porter team, Owen, who had hosted the show, hovered over Quinn’s phone with bewildered looks on their faces.
“This is the best thing I’ve ever seen,” Hana said.
Jason and I squeezed into the group and Quinn raised her phone up so we could see what they were watching. It was a Spanish music video that looked to be from the seventies, with upbeat music and trilling flutes. The lead singer sported a sparkly bellbottomed jumpsuit, and the chorus of singers and dancers behind him wore their own shiny jumpsuits with glittery stars stuck on their clothes and in their hair.
“Is that floating guy trying to dance like a bird? What’s with the star-spangled bikini lady?” Owen doubled over with laughter.
Jason and I started laughing, too.
“That is a mind-blowing fusion of Spanish music and Dutch fashion,” Jason said.
I pointed at the front man with the dark, feathery bouffant. “Craig, you look like the lead singer.”
“Eat a bag.”
“Omigosh, if we just feathered your hair and got you a gold jumpsuit, I could totally see it, Craig,” Quinn added.
“Does anyone know what they’re singing about?” I asked.
“Una paloma blanca,” Hana said. “A white dove.”
“Yeah,” Jason said, “he’s singing, ‘No one can take my freedom, I fly free over the mountain top. No one can take my power, I’m just a bird in the sky.’” He translated as the group of dancers, after several attempts, lifted one guy over their heads and flew him around as he flapped his arms like wings.
Owen was crying he was laughing so hard now. “We should…” He took his glasses off and wiped his eyes. “We should parody this as a sketch for the Comedy Hub contest.”
“My family could totally help make the costumes,” Quinn said.
“And Craig can be our lead Spaniard.” Hana elbowed Craig in the side.
“Aw, hell no,” Craig said.
Owen and Jason pointed to each other. Owen said, “You speak Spanish,” at the same time Jason said, “You’re taller.”
“Anyway, I don’t think this can be parodied, it’s already too ridiculous as is,” Jason said.
“This has to be done. Even if we just straight up recreate it. The modern world needs to see this,” Owen said as the whole chorus of singers and dancers flocked around bending their knees and flapping their arms. “Would you all really be up for doing this with us?” He looked directly at Quinn as he asked this, like she was a real-life goddess. I wondered if he stood a chance with her against Marigold-Mark.
Hana, Quinn, and I looked at each other and were in instant agreement. “Definitely,” Quinn answered for all of us, as I got giddy imagining the weeks ahead hanging out with Jason to rehearse this spectacle.
“Okay, let’s do it then,” Jason said. “Craig, do you think you’d be able to recreate this music track with your equipment?”
Craig gave a solid nod, which in his native Neanderthal translated to, “Yeah, sure.”
My giddy feeling diminished as the vision of the weeks ahead changed into hanging out with Jason…and my annoying stepbrother.
The other members of Spontaneous Combustion were by a patio table with snacks. Quinn, Hana, Owen, and Craig headed over to join them, which meant Jason and I were left alone again.
Music started playing over the outdoor speakers, and I jumped at the noise.
Jason yelled over the music. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, that just surprised me. I’m intrigued to see if we can pull off this Spanish seventies dove number.”
“I know. Any chance you play the flute?”
The music got even louder.
“No, but I’m told I’m quite talented at pretend-playing the flute,” I said with mock pride.
“Excellent.” He smiled. “Hey, you guys should do another Mash-Up, too. We just had a group cancel on us for the next one, if you’re free.”
“I’ll check, but I’m sure they’re up for it. It was great to play for so many people—we never get crowds like that at Northglenn.”
We listened to the loud thumping music.
I took a sip of water.
“Not to sound—” The bass beat
garbled up Jason’s words.
“What? Sorry, I missed that.”
“Do you want to walk over there where it’s quieter?” Jason lightly grabbed my elbow to lead me to the other end of the house where we walked up a few stairs to the deck. All the parts of my body that weren’t my elbow were jealous.
“What were you saying?” I asked when we stopped. I set my water glass on one of the flat wooden rails.
“I was just saying, not to sound cheesy, but that scene we had together last night was…I don’t know…that level of being in sync, it was cool. I’ve never done something like that before.”
I decided to be honest, since he was. “Same. It was practically an out-of-body experience, but not, because I was completely in it, you know?” I turned to him. Dangerous move, considering those eyes of his.
“Exactly,” he said in a way that sent sparks dominoing along my limbs.
We looked around the yard as if there were something important we had to find out there.
“So, is Marissa here?” Subtle.
He looked confused. “Marissa?”
“Yeah, the girl you were with at the beach?”
“Ah right, Mark’s girlfriend.”
“Mark’s girlfriend? I thought you two were together.”
He laughed. “No girlfriends for me. Those two have been together forever. There she is, with Mark.” He pointed across the yard to an area of patio couches that surrounded a fire pit.
Marissa and Mark were on the couches wrapped in each other’s arms, and Quinn was there, too, looking mighty cozy with Owen. What a difference two minutes could make.
Waiting to get control over my giant smile, I absently ran my finger along an engraved pattern in the deck rail.
“I love this detail on the rail,” I said, tracing the smooth loops in the wood.
His voice got quiet. “My dad loves it, too. It means a lot to him.”
“The railing? Why?”
Jason looked out at the darkness of the yard. He glided his finger along the pattern in the rail like I had.
“My mom commissioned the project after she got really sick.”
My stomach sank. “I’m so sorry. Is she okay?”
“She wanted a nice place to sit outside that was higher up so she could see all of her and Olivia’s gardens while she recovered. But she didn’t get to enjoy it for very long. She passed away last year.”
I didn’t know why I got so emotional about a person I’d never met, but tears welled in my eyes.
What do you say? What are you supposed to say?
“My dad had this detail added to the railing after she was gone, as kind of a memorial to my mom. The engraving looks like a flower pattern, but if you look closely, it’s her name—Linda May—written over and over again along the entire rail. After it was finished, I found my dad holding on to the railing later that night, crying. I hadn’t seen him like that since she died.”
We both stared silently at the carving. Hugging my arms across my body, I tried to speak, but Jason started first.
“Sorry, that was probably way too much. I don’t usually talk about my mom with people.” He laughed uneasily. “When you mentioned the engraving, it just came out.”
“No, no. I’m so sorry, Jason,” I said, looking up, finally finding my words. “You seem to be doing… I don’t know. I guess people learn how to act strong, but—”
“It’s been over a year now, and I’m doing better. Last year I was a total mess. Now I’m only an occasional mess.”
I nodded. C’mon words. Here he was spilling his life to me, and all I could do was nod.
“Hey, that’s a good reason for not wanting a girlfriend for the last year, right?” He lifted his hands to the side and let out another awkward laugh.
My stomach sank another inch. When he said “no girlfriends for me,” he didn’t mean “at the moment,” he meant it as a policy. Got it. “It makes sense considering all you’ve been through.”
“I didn’t think I could do improv again, either, but it helps.” Jason crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring me. “It’s nice to escape and be someone else for a while.”
“I get that escaping part. I love that about improv.” I paused. “I don’t know what to say, Jason, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. Man, I’m sorry I went into all that.”
“Don’t be sorry. I just wish I could put all your heartache into a big bag and take it to the beach with me for a day so you could have a break from it.”
“That’s nice. I like that.” The smile came back to his face. He looked at me for a while before continuing. “And the other good part of doing improv is I got to meet you, right?” His voice was soft as he reached out like he was about to touch my arm.
He doesn’t want to have a girlfriend, but he’s glad he got to meet me? What does that mean?
Jason’s face changed, and he coughed a little, his arm continuing past mine and pointing behind me. “Well, it’s not a beach, but there’s a nice fire going out there. Sound good?”
I nodded and headed toward the others. Before stepping down off the deck, I remembered my drink on the rail. As I turned back to get it, I was stopped by the wall of Jason’s torso, his chest rising and falling beneath my palms and his thin T-shirt. Maybe he won’t notice if I stay here forever.
But as I stepped to steady myself, my left foot slipped from the deck to the step below, landing with a forceful jolt. There was a horrific snap as my leg crumpled beneath me. So much pain. A guttural cry pushed itself out of me as I tumbled down the stairs, my head smacking against something hard before my body landed with a thud on the earth.
Chapter Four
I was in a hospital room, aching from temples to eyeballs like there was a vise grip around my skull. A man in scrubs futzed with an IV next to me, and Quinn and Hana were on my other side, their faces stricken with fear. Well, that’s comforting.
The nurse said, “Hi, Ellie, I’m your nurse, Jim.” He had a drawl and the bushiest mustache I’d ever seen.
Aside from the pain, or maybe because of it, I felt drunk and loopy, even though I hadn’t had a single drink. “Hi. Is my leg a broken disaster? It made a snapping sound.”
Jim gave me a smile. “We took some X-rays, and the doctor will let us know soon.” He gave me a reassuring pat.
I winced at Hana and Quinn. “You guys, never take me to a party again. That was the most embarrassing exit of anyone ever in the history of party exits.”
Quinn squeezed my hand. “The whole thing was crazy. I’m so glad you’re okay. Jason started yelling for someone to call 911, and we found you in a heap on the lawn. It was by far the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s because you don’t keep up on the news.” Through narrow slits of my eyelids, I saw her frowning at me.
“If catapulting off a patio is your way of getting out of making out with a boy, for future reference, you don’t have to be so dramatic,” Hana said.
“I did want to make out with a boy. With Jason. And…”
“Jason,” Quinn said, “was adorable.”
“Adorable,” Hana seconded.
Quinn went on. “You should have seen how he took charge. People went to try to move you, but he said to leave you in case there was any issue with your neck—you landed in a messed-up way. Marissa said he’s a lifeguard so he knows this stuff. He had Owen get a blanket from the living room. ‘Not the wool one, the soft one,’ he ordered.”
I vaguely remembered some of this, and especially remembered Jason saying it was all his fault as he wrapped me in the blanket and held my hand until the paramedics came.
“Serious Prince Charming crap he did with you,” Hana said. “If I hadn’t been so scared, I would have puked at the sweetness.” She pretended to gag.
Quinn sighed. “After you left in the ambulance, he said he was going to come to the hospital as soon as he could get everyone out of the house.”
“He’s coming here? Where he’l
l see me like…” I gestured to the hospital bed and my aching head.
“You look fine, just a bit…mangled. Do you want me to call him and tell him not to come?” Quinn asked, her eyes alight with worry.
I was torn. See Jason again? Yes, please. Here, like this? No, thank you. “Make up something good?”
“I can do that,” Quinn said.
“Thanks. Hey, did anyone call my mom?” I asked.
Quinn nodded. “Craig called her as they were getting you into the ambulance, but she was on a date in the city, so it’s going to take her a little longer. She should be here any minute.”
“Oh yeah, the guy Aunt Heather set her up with. Of course, the one night she goes on a date in decades, and I have a catastrophe.” My head pounded.
“Craig’s getting some snacks from the vending machine. He’ll be back soon.” Hana perked up a little. She said this as if he were the greatest hero in all Chicagoland.
Quinn and I glanced at each other with wide eyes, then to Hana, and said, “It’s Craig.”
I sat up, blood sloshing through my brain, and said, “Holy crap. You’re in love with my stepbrother?”
Hana’s entire face flushed pink, and she quickly covered it with both hands. “I’m not in love.” She made that word sound like something disgusting. “He’s just so…so…tall. And he plays the guitar like a god—”
Quinn doubled over laughing. As I laughed, I pounded my fist into the bed because it hurt my head to laugh so hard, but I couldn’t help it.
Quinn recovered somewhat and pried Hana’s hands apart so she could look at her directly. “Hana Yoon, did you just say he plays guitar like a god? Who are you?”
“Shut up, you guys.” Hana clenched her fists by her sides, her face now more the color of a pomegranate. And that was the moment Craig chose to open the door and march in, looking more frazzled than I’d ever seen him, his arms spilling over with bags of chips and cookies. “Aaahh!” Hana screamed. She actually screamed, and then, mumbling, she ran past Craig out the door, the only intelligible word being “bathroom.”
A Messy, Beautiful Life Page 4
